Private Sweets

[Dax Perl]

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[ D A X...P E R L ]

............A good story always started in a cantina. Okay, that wasn't strictly true, but Dax thought that enough of his adventures had started in starports or cantinas, especially rundown, sketchy and highly questionable cantinas, that the statement held at least some semblance of the truth in it. So, as Dax walked into the seedy cantina on Bpfassh, he was not the least bit surprised when a bottle went flying through the air and the man had to bob his head to right to narrowly avoid earning himself another broken nose.

............Yeah...this was about par for the course. The entire cantina was in the middle of a pitched bar fight. Some guys pinning some other guy against a table, while yet another guy beat the piss out of him. A couple of twileks standing on a table with bottles of booze in their hands, cheering on the drunken combatants...and somewhere in here, was a particular Force sensitive Zeltron.

............Dax could feel her presence in the bar, there was no doubt she was here. Dax looked around the room again, attempting to pinpoint exactly where the Force signature was, but the man need not look far as before he even finished that, he saw the familiar red head bobbing up and down in crowd, fighting what looked like a Rodian.

............Sighing, Dax reached down to his hip, drew his slugthrower, and fired it high in the air. Several people screamed, the Twi'leks on the table immediately knelt down and covered their heads, and Dax looked around the room with an indifferent grin. "Hate to break up the party, folks, but get the hell outta here." The patrons of this fine establishment looked at each other, not really sure if the man standing in the doorway was being serious. Deciding to help hurry along their decision making process, Dax used the Force to create an aura of fear and dread throughout the room. The patrons very quickly emptied out once that happened. All except one.

............Dax walked over to the bar and went behind the counter, where the bartender was still hiding, and pulled out a bottle of Corellian whiskey from one of the high shelves. Two glasses full of ice and Dax, poured the thick liquor into the glasses and gestured with a smile towards the pink-skinned Zeltron to take a seat.

Kyra Perl

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by Dax Fyre​

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra's frustration fizzled out into shock, the world walloping around her as she was left staring at familiar edge of a lost face. Uncle Dax.

Wait... Uncle Dax?

She felt so small all of a sudden, memories of lap climbing and blaster stealing coming forward as she beheld a long lost family friend. It had been... years. Was her mom really that desperate to find her?

Bodies bumped into her, in a rush to escape the faint hint of fear Kyra could sense at the edge of the fog. He had to be laying it on thick for it to reach her through her vices. She snorted and trudged to the bar.

"You're getting this back to the server," she grumped, tossing a credit stick across the counter. What was the point if helping that damn girl if he was just gonna scare them all away? A touch of red hit her soft pink cheeks. She dipped her chin into her hair, wondering if he could even recognize her like this.

He looked the same.

"How?"

 

[Dax Perl]

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[ D A X...P E R L ]

............It took a moment of awkward staring before Kyra finally relented and sat at the bar. Dax slid the credit back across towards the woman. "It's on me," he said. Dax looked down at the bartender, who was still cowering, hands over his head. "Uh...hey, buddy? Don't mean to interrupt your...uh...bartending? But, why don't you go home for the day." Dax reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a not too small amount of credits. "For the booze...and the damages." Dax felt a little bad for scaring the poor fellow...and putting a hole in the guy's ceiling...

............The bartender looked at Dax in confusion. Why was that everyone's first reaction? Eventually, the man got his bearings, took the the credits from Dax's hand, and quickly exited the building.

............The man exhaled as he picked up his own glass of whiskey and peered into it, only glancing over at the very disheveled looking Kyra. "You look like chit, kid," he said, before taking a sip of the drink and not answering her question.

............He hadn't seen most of the Perls in many, many years. Last time he'd seen any of them was when he'd ran into Yula some years ago by sheer chance. It was much longer since he'd seen Kyra. And by the looks of it, she'd seen better days. Well, they had all the time in the world to catch up.

Kyra Perl

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by Dax Fyre​

 

[Kyra Perl]

"How would you know what I'm suppose to look like, you haven't seen me since diapers." Well, not entirely. It felt like a lifetime ago though. Before Nida, before the Master. Before the training, the academies, before anything really. The girl he knew felt like a stranger to her now. Her cybernetic hand wrapped tighter over her glass at the sensation, her stomach flopping.

"Did mom send you?" She pushed, an anxious edge to her words as she tried to cut right to the chase. The bar emptied, the space growing eerily quiet as she eyed him sharply from behind her hair. Her pupils practically vibrated, betraying her and giving a hint to the spices within.

"Cause she can't make me come back. I'm eighteen now. And you don't get to just reappear and start telling me what to do-- where have you even been? Feths sake, I thought you were dead," she rattled, a defense mechanism against that soul scraping gaze of his. Feck. He wasn't buying any of it.

She swallowed hard and tossed back the whole damn glass. In case you were wondering, her liver count was 1.

She checked.

 

[Dax Perl]

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[ D A X...P E R L ]

............Dax was surprised by the...erratic responses that Kyra gave him. He raised an amused eyebrow, despite that. This certainly was not how he had expected this meeting to go. Nor did he expect her to remind him so much of himself at her age. That being said, such a comparison was certainly not good. He'd been so incredibly pissed at a galaxy that had taken everything he had and then spat in his face. The cybernetic arm gripping the glass, so tight he thought it might shatter, was evidence that she'd not had an easy time of it either.

"Where have you even been? Feths sake, I thought you were dead."

............The girl slammed back the whiskey in a manner that reminded him of Julius Sedaire , a practicing alcoholic. Dax poured her another drink. Not that she needed another. "Well...that's 'cause I was." Dax said it nonchalantly. Like it was an everyday galactic occurrence for people to die and then come back to life. To be fair, it wasn't unheard of...

............"In any case," he continued, glazing over the topic of his demise, "yeah, your mother sent me." Dax paused to take another sip. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna force you to go back if you don't want to." She was right in a sense. She was old enough to make her own decisions...if that decision was to waste away in some chitty bar out in the ass end of nowhere though..."What's going on, Kyra?" Dax asked, actually looking at her now, with a worried look on his face. He hadn't been a part of his niece's life in many years. He didn't really have a right to be asking these sorts of things, but he did it anyways. She was family.

Kyra Perl

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by Dax Fyre​

 

[Kyra Perl]

"Oh I'm sure she's told you all about it," Kyra snipped, a bitter edge to her words. Many would find themselves blessed to have so many people concerned and trying to show care. Kyra felt suffocated. All their emotions, well intended or otherwise, were a thick blanket of pity she couldn't escape. The spices only went so far as to erase its existence from the person before her.

She could still see it written across his face.

"Wait a moment, I'm not nearly drunk enough for this." She took the freshly poured drink and cheers at the air between them, knocking it back too as if she had nothing to lose.

Her lips smacked, her eyes watering against the pace she set.

"You were saying?" She rasped.

 

[Dax Perl]

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[ D A X...P E R L ]

............The raised eyebrow was back. Not in amusement this time, though. Instead it was there out of...confusion? Concern? Bewilderment? To be completely honest, Dax wasn't entirely sure how he felt at this moment in time. Whilst Kyra knocked back glass after glass of hard liquor, he stood there, leaning into the counter, and sipped. Given the fact that she'd clearly been inebriated when Dax had arrived, he was honestly surprised that his niece was still standing. High tolerance must've run in the family or something.

............"I'll be honest, Kyra, I know about as much as some poor First Order frontline trooper knows about what his superiors are planning when it comes to what's been going on with the family." Aside from the fact that he'd been 'out of commission' for a couple years, he hadn't heard much from his sister. To be completely fair, she probably thought he was off galavanting through the galaxy as long periods of silence interspersed with sudden, brief, and often violent, appearances had become a bit of a trademark of his as of late.

............Dax sighed and ran a hand through his hair as he tried to figure out how in the hell he was going to get Kyra talking. It was pretty clear she didn't want to. It was his turn to knock back his drink now.

............"Alright, look," he said as he poured out another drink, "clearly, I'm way outta the loop here. Galaxy's gone to chit as far as I can tell. Which, isn't really new, but anyways, things suck all 'round. Why don't we start somewhere easy. What happened to your arm?" Dax wished sometimes that he had Ki's way with words. Her way of understanding others, and making them understand her. But he didn't, so he was blunt and to the point. He could only hope that Kyra would be receptive to his way of approaching her.

Kyra Perl

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by Dax Perl​

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra's attention slid down to her metal arm, a reply slipping through her puckered lips before she could catch it. "Got got in a speeder door," she sassed, unabashed. She didn't particularly cared to filter herself in that moment, a part of her felt... coiled. Something inside of her itched for a release. She had nearly gotten it, too, and then Dax had to come and ruin it all.

She turned on him, waggling a metal finger.

"No! Fell in a lava pit-- chicks love lava pits. Not that you would know." Her statements were near incoherent. She didn't care. There was a spark in her eye egging him on, challenging him to fight back.

"So where were you really? Jail?

 

[Dax Perl]

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............Dax rolled his eyes at his niece. He definitely did not remember her having this much sass when she was little. "Yeah. You fell into a lava pit. Just like Vader. And I used to be Dark Lord of the Sith. My wife loves that edgy chit," he fired back dryly. She could've at least come up with something a little bit more realistic. Or interesting.

............The Rogue wound up pulling a pack of cigarettes from his jacket's inner pocket and pulled one out, putting the thing cylinder to his lips before tilting the box towards his niece. Once he'd put the pack away, he snapped his fingers, a thin flame coming to life between his thumb and index finger, which he used to light his own cigarette, and Kyra's if she took one.

............Dax took a long drag, the cinders at the end briefly glowing red, before he blew out the smoke. "Like I said. I was dead, Pantora." He alternated to his drink, whilst rubbing a spot on his chest, near his heart. Despite this being a completely new body, he still felt it sometimes. "Some fething Knight of Ren put his saber in my chest. Idiot turned his back on me, so I shot him. Then I spent a few years in the Deep Dark." A much longer draw of the cigarette. "Now spill. How'd you really lose the arm. And if you give me some bull like a Sarlacc ate it, I've been meaning to brush up on my Neural Storm. It leaves quite the migraine."

Kyra Perl

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by Dax Perl​

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra crinkled her nose, a noise of protest hitting the air.

He would, too. He totally would.

"Yurb," she grumbled swiping out for the bottle to pour herself another. "Starship fell on me." She back peddled, lips parting in indignation. "And I'm not making that up-- I mean who wants a ship to fall on them anyways? Took me out of the whole damn thing." It had left her unable to help her father. Or her master. Or the countless civilians. She had amounted to nothing more than dead weight, and she still felt like that to this day.

They had won in the end, but that wasn't the point.

She shoulda done more. An ironic sentiment, when followed by the swig of another drink.

Her eyes watered against the burn, leveling skeptically on him. "You really come back from the dead?"

 

[Dax Perl]

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[ D A X...P E R L ]

............Dax tilted his head in doubt, about to assault his niece's mind until she quickly assured him it was the truth. The tone of her voice told him she wasn't lying. "A starship, huh...You shoulda started with that. It's more interesting anyways." There was no humor in Dax's voice. Despite his words, he was taking his niece very seriously for the moment. "To answer your question though, yes, I am back from the dead." It wasn't exactly something that Dax didn't believe happened himself. It was far from unheard of for a powerful Force User to come back from the dead. He supposed he was more surprised that he could now count himself among those ranks. And by sheer luck, no less. Just being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

"We can talk about that another time though. Tell me what happened." A star ship didn't just fall on someone. And even if it did, it wasn't something that someone just walked away from, Forcer or not.

Kyra Perl

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by Dax Perl​

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra slumped down into the counter, showing the maturity level of a grumpy twelve year old as melted into the sticky vinyl. "What do you think happened? War. Nida was about to get get face crushed in so I saved her. As per usual," she slurred bitterly.


"Crushed us both instead. Not that there was really anywhere to go to-- idunno why everyone's so hot about going under ceilings when they just trap you in."

She would know.

She shot him a look from the crook of her arm, her 'there, happy?' clear as day. Her fingers lazily nudged out her glass for a shameless refill. If he didn't know any better, it would seem as if she was suddenly trying to get trashed.

She was.